Blessed or Cursed?
by Dragon Soarer
Summary: A quick drabble of Snape as he dies in The Deathly Hallows. From his point of view, how he thinks about his life, and about Harry.


Snape drabble

To write this, I got inspired from Illusionpool's 'Am I Evil' story about Goldenflower from Warriors.

Blessed or Cursed?

As I lay motionless on the hard ground of the Shrieking Shack, I asked Potter to look at me. With my dying breath, I asked him to look at me.

Some who hear the tale may wonder if insanity came to me during my last moments. They may be right; after all, why would I wish for the last thing I could see in this world to be the brat I hated, the one I despised more than any other?

They may be right. Maybe I turned insane. But they could never understand.

As for Potter, he may think, upon seeing the vial of memories I granted him at last, that I did it to see Lily's eyes staring at my own for one last time. But that would not be true. At least, not completely true. I myself am not sure why I did it. All I know is that in that last moment, my heart filled with regret, confused among my desire to surpress any such emotion for James Potter's son.

All my life I protected Potter, protected his life with my own, time and time again. Perhaps after years of doing so, I have subconsciously come to care for him, no matter how I may try to deny it, even to myself. Perhaps after all this time of witnessing him grow up, I came to believe that he had more in him of Lily that just her eyes.

Perhaps Potter was not the boy I thought at all.

During that last moment, as I lay sprawled on the floor, blood gushing from my neck from Nagini's bite, I saw something I would never have thought to see. I saw Potter, removing his invisibility cloak, appear right in front of me. I noticed that his eyes, Lily's eyes, were filled not only with shock, but with genuine regret.

I doubt even he knew how to feel at that moment, and if feeling sadness was as unexpected for him as it was for me. It probably was. But I knew one thing—James Potter would never have looked at me like that, no matter the circumstances.

It was at that moment that it caught up with me: the realization that Potter was not his father all over again; that he was not an arrogant, attention-seeking, self-centered brat. I think that I always knew subconciously that this child had more of Lily in him than I was willing to see, blinded by the hate for his father. And in that instant, as our gazes met, I fully understood at last who Potter really was.

Perhaps I should call him Harry now. But after all this time, I am not sure my pride could take it. I, after all, am still a Slytherin. Old habits die hard. I am not an emotionally soft old man; I still do not like Potter. I merely do not hate him as much as I used to, no matter how much I hated his father before him.

But even though I still do not like him, I cannot help but wonder what it would have been like to have known him through a better angle all this time. Would our relationship have been better, if I had not seen only what I wanted to see? If I had not spent half my time imagining James Potter instead of his child, would it have been different?

Yet despite all, in the last moment, his green eyes stared back at mine filled with mixed emotions of shock, regret, sadness, confusion, and fear. Would he have tried to save me, if he had had the chance? Probably; despite not being his father, he still has as much of a hero complex.

And then I knew, I knew I wanted him to see my memories, of Lily, and also of all I had done in the war. So I released the memory, barely seeing it ooze out of me through my now hazy view. I saw him, blurred as he was, capture the silver strands in a glass vial conjured by Granger, always the know-it-all.

I wondered. Was this a blessing or a curse? I fully realized at last who Harry Potter really was, a blessing. But the pressing time leaves no room for apologies of any kind, even if my pride had let me utter them. I probably would have, for Lily's child. Neither of us will get to fully know the other, to get the chance of finally interacting as something other than enemies or rivals. A curse, now that I know what I could be missing.

On the other hand, I was dying. Many wizards would consider this a curse, but not me; not me, who would finally get to see my beloved Lily again. But this blessing is clouded as a curse, the curse of seeing James Potter beside her always and forever, in whatever place death may bring us.

Potter lives on; a blessing in itself, as is the fact that Voldemort—no, he does not deserve the title he gave himself anymore—Riddle will soon die. I know that the Elder Wand belongs to Potter, not Riddle. And I know that the snake-loving bastard is immortal no more, that he will die tonight. But at what price? Again, a blessing clouded by a curse, as Potter might die in the process.

My whole life was a string of blessings and curses: meeting Lily, losing her; the comfort of my mother when my drunken father would take out his anger on me, then losing her as well. Knowing all the joys of Hogwarts, but it being taken away as I got bullied again and again by none other than Potter's father, godfather, and their friends. Knowing a great man such as Albus Dumbledore, and have to kill him yourself later on. Getting high into Riddle's ranks, only to lose my life at his hands.

But the greatest blessing and curse of all reside in one boy, one teenager; Harry Potter. The child is both good and bad, brings both great things and terrible things to himself and those around him. Lily lives on in him, yet so does James. Even my meeting him was both a blessing and a curse.

Many, would they have been close to me, would have said I led a terrible life of hardship and misfortune. A cursed life. And yet others who have lived through worse would have told me off as lucky to have it dotted by all those blessings, occasional and brief as they may be. I do not know. Maybe it is not for me to decide. All is confused as I am dying, as my obsidian eyes, filled with sorrow, regret and fear, met his. Lily's eyes; Harry's eyes. And it was as I drew my very last breath that those eyes filled me with hope, and I knew that my life had been worth it, every moment of it, both cursed and blessed.

Nobody leads a perfect life, yet the moment preceding my death was close to it. And as I died, I was in peace at last.


End file.
